Obama visits Cleveland, hails success of steelmaker ArcelorMittal

By
John Arthur Hutchison, The News-Herald

Friday, November 15, 2013

President Barack Obama appeared Thursday in Cleveland, where he talked about a variety of topics such as the economy, manufacturing, immigration and health care.
The president spoke for about 23 minutes before a crowd of around 150 inside a warehouse at ArcelorMittal Cleveland, one of the leading integrated steelmaking facilities in the country. The event was not open to the general public.
He credited the company’s recent success and said it was a economic symbol of a successful business that has rebounded during the past five years.
“The story of this plant is the story of America for the past five years,” Obama said. “A comeback story like yours all across America.”
He touched briefly about how the country now produces more oil than what is imported and that he wants Congress to pass an immigration bill.
“We have to provide opportunities like when your parents and grandparents arrived,” Obama said.
It didn’t take long for Obama to acknowledge the unveiling of the federal health care website hasn’t gone as expected, but he stressed that it would be fixed.
“We have to make sure every American has quality access to affordable health care,” Obama said. “No question, the rollout of the Affordable Health Care Act was tougher than what we expected.”
The president also gave credit to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican who pushed for the state to expand Medicaid coverage that would provide an estimated 275,000 people health care coverage.
“It was the right thing to do,” Obama said. “The bottom line is sometimes we have to put politics aside and do what is good for the people.”
Earlier in the day, Obama made a statement in Washington regarding people who have plans that changed since the health care law took effect. Many have received cancellation notices from their insurers.
“Already, people who have plans that pre-date the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven’t changed. That was already in the law,” Obama said, according to a statement transcript. “That’s what’s called a grandfather clause. It was included in the law. Today, we’re going to extend that principle both to people whose plans have changed since the law took effect, and to people who bought plans since the law took effect.
“So state insurance commissioners still have the power to decide what plans can and can’t be sold in their states. But the bottom line is, insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be canceled into 2014, and Americans whose plans have been canceled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan.”
Ohio Republican Party spokesman Chris Schrimpf said in an email to The News-Herald that Obama has guaranteed that health care would be front and center in the 2014 elections.
“Ohioans have already gotten their cancellation notices in the mail. They’ve already seen their premiums and deductibles go up. They’ve already seen their hours get cut. They’ve seen how ObamaCare hurts our economy and their pocketbooks,” Schrimpf said. “Now we know that we have one more year to send a message to Ohio and national Democrats that ObamaCare must be repealed.
“The President promised Ohioans, in Ohio, that if they liked their plan, they could keep it. That’s why the Ohio Republican Party is committed to making sure that every Ohioan who has their health care disrupted by ObamaCare gets their voice heard.”